Fandom as a Category v2 Posted

[meri_oddities]

We have posted the revised version of the Fandom as Category policy change Here to the Fanlore wiki. We invite discussion on it. Please post your comments here on Dreamwidth. If there are no problems or issues that require a change, the policy will become final in seven days after posting (4/28/2010).

At that time, we'll start adding the fandom categories and we'll put out a call for help with moving and changing the pages the need it.

Comments

[facetofcathy]

Is this meant to apply to RPF fandoms?

[cesy]

Will you use sub-categories at all, or will it be just one huge long list of categories, many of which are very similar?

[mikes_grrl]

I'm sorry to be dense, but I don't understand this from the technical end. I read the policy change and I certainly don't have any issues with it theoretically, but I'm not understand how this changes pages. Which okay, doesn't really matter at my level of use of fanlore but I'd still like to understand. :)

For instance, I've worked on the Life on Mars fandoms pages (http://fanlore.org/wiki/Life_On_Mars), as there are at least three fandoms for it (UK, US, and for the off-shoot show A2A). I made a page and mistakenly tried to make the individual fandoms subpages to the primary LoM page, although that was fixed later. Anyway, if LoM is a category now, is the main page unnecessary? Because in my mind the main page is kind of important in explaining the sub-fandoms, which is how I made the sub-pages mistake to begin with. I guess I just don't get the database relations here.

I'm sorry to be asking such a n00b kind of question, but I don't think I can really debate the matter anyway until I understand what the change effects. :(

[dewey]

Perhaps a link back to this post on the Fanlore page would be helpful. At least for the present period of discussion.

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

To be honest, the RPF discussion doesn't make much sense to me. People don't need fandom categories, they are not defined by a specific fandom. Not even actors. Not even actors people are fannish about. Or do you plan to add fandom categories for fan writers, vidders, etc. as well? In my opinion categories such as actor, musician, etc. are more than adequate.

The way I see it, what we need fandom categories for are
1. fanworks (like stories, vids and zines), websites, archives, communities, awards, newsletters, challenges and other things fans do
2. pages that we move from subpage to top level
3. fandom specific glossary terms if there is so much to say that they don't fit on a fandom glossary subpage and need separate pages.

Extending fandom categories to people doesn't seem right to me.


Associating the Existing Pages to Each Other

In the previous conversation on Dreamwidth it was decided that Name (Fandom) will be the standard for associating existing pages. This is the format we're using now on Fanlore with disambiguation pages. It makes sense to continue to do it that way.

So the Hermione Granger sub-page becomes Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)

I think that part ended up there by mistake. If we have fandom categories, the pages already *are* associated to each other. Including the fandom in the title doesn't add any additional value and creates a lot of unnecessary redirects. Unless there is a second Hermione Granger, for example a fan writer who uses that pseud, I would simply name the page "Hermione Granger". That would also follow our approach to disambiguation where we name a page whenever possible with the correct title and create disambiguation only when it becomes necessary.